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A riveting history of America's most beautiful natural resources, The Quiet World documents the heroic fight waged by the U.S. federal government from 1879 to 1960 to save wild Alaska—Mount McKinley, the Tongass and Chugach national forests, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Lake Clark, and the Coastal Plain of the Beaufort Sea, among other treasured landscapes—from the extraction industries. Award-winning historian Douglas Brinkley traces the wilderness movement in Alaska, from John Muir to Theodore Roosevelt to Aldo Leopold to Dwight D. Eisenhower, with narrative verve. Basing his research on extensive new archival material, Brinkley shows how a colorful band of determined environmentalists created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge just before John F. Kennedy became president.
Brinkley introduces a lively gallery of characters influential in preserving Alaska's wilderness resources: the indomitable U.S. Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, who championed the Brooks Range; charming Ivy League explorer Charles Sheldon, who led the campaign to create Denali National Park; intrepid Bob Marshall, who cofounded The Wilderness Society; hermit illustrator Rockwell Kent, who lived in isolation on Fox Island like a modern Thoreau; nature photographer Ansel Adams, whose image Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake set off a tsunami of public interest in America's tallest peak; and U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Rachel Carson, who promoted proper ocean stewardship; among many more.
Wildlife fervently comes to life in The Quiet World: Brinkley tells incredible stories about the sea otters in the Aleutians, moose in the Kenai Peninsula, and birdlife across the Yukon Delta expanse while exploring the devastating effects that reckless overfishing, seal slaughter, and aerial wolf hunting have wrought on Alaska's once-abundant fauna. While taking into account Exxon Valdez–like oil spills, The Quiet World mainly celebrates how the U.S. government has preserved many of Alaska's great wonders for future generations to enjoy.
Vanity Fair contributing editor Brinkley (History/Rice Univ.; The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, 2009, etc.) delivers a vigorous, thorough survey of Alaska's natural splendors, from John Muir's first treks into Glacier Bay in 1879 to President Eisenhower's establishment of the Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960.
"Seward's Folly" was acquired from the Russians under President Andrew Johnson in 1867 and would soon prove itself much more than a frozen wasteland, as the lucrative markets in coal, minerals, seal and mammal fur, gold and oil would unfurl. However, another trend by eager admirers of the land's natural beauty and abundant wildlife evolved into a powerful preservation movement, thanks to Muir's early writings and the founding of the Sierra Club; the 1899 scientific expedition to Alaska sponsored by Union Pacific Railroad owner E.H. Harriman (many in Alaska were already alarmed by the stripping of its natural resources for industry); and the advocacy for the land and its natives by amateur naturalist Theodore Roosevelt, among numerous others. As president, Roosevelt was the first to articulate a doctrine of conservation, as sketched later by the great environmentalist and writer Aldo Leopold, involving the "wise use" of the land and resources, the necessity of "public responsibility" for their care and the need for science to maintain them. Roosevelt's Bull Moose agenda inspired other progressives like Charles Sheldon, who fought to save the Denali wilderness as part of his work for the U.S. Biological Survey, and William Temple Hornaday, head of the Bronx Zoo and author ofOur Vanishing Wild Life (1913). Brinkley systematically works through the milestones of Alaskan preservation, including the moving paintings by Rockwell Kent and photographs by Ansel Adams, Adolph Murie's fight for the wolves, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas' position as the "leading light of the wilderness movement" during the New Deal, and writings by the Beats such as Gary Snyder.
Brinkley skillfully conveys how the natural beauty of Alaska worked its magic.
Anonymous
Posted March 24, 2011
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Anonymous
Posted April 5, 2012
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Anonymous
Posted April 21, 2011
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Overview
A riveting history of America's most beautiful natural resources, The Quiet World documents the heroic fight waged by the U.S. federal government from 1879 to 1960 to save wild Alaska—Mount McKinley, the Tongass and Chugach national forests, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Lake Clark, and the Coastal Plain of the Beaufort Sea, among other treasured landscapes—from the extraction industries. Award-winning historian Douglas Brinkley traces the wilderness movement in Alaska, from John Muir to Theodore Roosevelt to...